Saturday 18 September – When Time Stood Still – Orlando Jopling and Clíodna Shanahan

Description

6pm Saturday 18 September

Wivenhoe Church

Orlando Jopling cello
Clíodna Shanahan piano

Frank Bridge Cello Sonata
Franz Liszt  St Francis of Assisi and the birds
Janáçek Pohadka (the life and loves of Tsar Berendyey)
Philip Glass Music from the 2002 film Naqoyqatsi, directed by Godfrey Reggio and starring Belladonna, Marlon Brando, Elton John and Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Arvo Pårt Spiegel im Spiegel
Sibelius Malincolia

Clíodna Shanahan

Clíodna Shanahan has a busy performing and recording schedule for TV, radio, symphony and chamber concerts. A pianist and organist, she also records film soundtracks, most notably Howard Shore’s The Hobbit.

She studied at the Menuhin School, performing her first concerto at age eleven, and at the Royal College of Music, winning the Sarah Mundlak Memorial Award for piano, awarded to the pianist who achieves the highest final recital mark.

She has also won first prizes at Siemens Feis Ceoil, Dublin, Fitzwilton Trust, Jellinek and Arts Council of Ireland Awards, and the Belfast Classical Music Bursary, and performed concertos with the Vietnemese NSO and the Guildford SO.  at the Wigmore Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Royal Festival Hall and Purcell Room.

Cliodna regularly performs chamber music and has recently embarked on a piano duo partnership. She has performed on television and radio and is featured on a Young Pianist Foundation CD recorded live at The Hague.

Leoš Janáček (1854-1928) Pohádka (1910, revised 1923)

Pohádka is based on the epic poem “Stazka o tsrae Berendyeye” (The Tale of Tsar Berendeyev) by Vasily Zhukovsky, which is also the basis for Stravinsky’s ballet The Firebird.

Steven Isserlis’ retelling of the story

The handsome young Tsarevitch, Prince Ivan, has had his soul promised to the King of the Underworld, Kashchei, but on mature consideration decides that he would much rather run away with the grumpy King’s fetching young daughter, Maria, a decision which leads to an adventure-filled chase over hill and dale until the two lovers finally reach safety and live happily ever after.

The germination of Janácek’s Pohádka was a long one. First performed in 1910 in a three-movement version, which its composer described as part of a projected longer work, it was revived in 1912, this time with four movements. When it was eventually published in 1923, however, it had again lost its last movement; this final version is the one we play here. The ‘tale’ of the title is based (loosely) on a story by the Russian poet V A Zhukovsky, catchily entitled ‘A Tale about Tsar Berendey, about his son Ivan the Tsarevich, about the Acumen of Immortal Kaschei and about the wise Tsarievna Maria, Kaschei’s Daughter’.

The part of the story represented in Pohádka concerns the handsome Prince Ivan (initially conveyed by the cello in a dotted pizzicato motif—so appropriate that a noble, good-looking hero should be played by the cello), who falls in love with the beautiful Princess Maria.

The only slight handicap to this otherwise ideal match is that her father is none other than Kaschei the Undead, King of the Underworld—perhaps not the ideal father-in-law for a young prince of good prospects. Nor does Kaschei consider Ivan the son-in-law of his dreams. In fact, for complicated reasons, he feels that he owns Ivan’s soul—you know how these Undead fathers-in-law are—and strongly objects to the match.

The dreamy opening of the first movement, apparently representing the magical lake at which Ivan and Maria meet, leads to a touching love-duet; but after that the urgency increases, culminating in a passage of violent syncopations as Kaschei chases the young lovers on horseback. The second movement also begins with a strong sense of magic. The young lovers have reached safety at the palace of a neighbouring Tsar; but alas, all is not well, since this Tsar and Tsarina are rather too taken with young Ivan, fancying him as the perfect match for their own daughter and putting a spell on him, causing him to fall in love with said daughter. Maria reacts just as any normal adolescent girl would under these circumstances: she turns into a blue flower.

The good news is that this draws from Janácek (near the opening of the movement) some meltingly lyrical music. And then, more good news: someone has the presence of mind to summon a wise magician, who breaks the spell. One can hear Ivan’s recovery in the return of his initial dotted rhythm, now played arco (bowed) rather than pizzicato (plucked). To demonstrate his return to health, he shoots right up to a searing top B flat. Sometimes in performance I’ve wondered whether Ivan, to demonstrate his newly found vigour, climbs to the top of a tree, where he finds a rather desperate cat bawling at the top of its voice; but that probably isn’t the intended effect.

In the last movement, Ivan and Maria have reached the sanctuary of Ivan’s parents’ palace, where they tell of their love and their adventures, celebrate, and live happily ever after—well, as happily as one can live in the key of G flat major.